Charlotte, NC
Several members of Reconnecting America's staff will be speaking at the 10th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth: Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities Conference," Feb. 3-5, in Charlotte, NC.
Reconnecting America President and CEO John Robert Smith will be a participant in the discussion about "Livable Communities in Smaller Cities, Towns and Rural America" and "Smart Growth and Rural America: Fostering Economic Development and Sustainable Communities."
Sam Zimbabwe, Director, Center for Transit-Oriented Development; and Abigail Thorne-Lyman, Senior Project Director, Reconnecting America; will be participants in the discussion "Tools for Performance-Based Planning for Equitable, Sustainable Communities."

Executive Summary
Affordability has never been just about housing costs. Researchers have long known that it’s the interaction between housing and transportation costs that provides a more meaningful measure of affordability. This is especially true now that transportation costs have in­creased to an average of 19 percent of household income -- up from 3 percent in the 1920s.
Transportation is now the second highest household expenditure after housing, and gas prices are expected to continue driving that cost up. Communities in Southern California are especially vulnerable as the foreclosure crisis indicates -- since residents drive so much.
The affordability index is a new tool to measure the true affordability of housing choices by combining hous­ing and transportation costs (H+T) in a neighborhood or region and dividing that number by income. Interestingly, the index shows that H+T costs vary significantly: house­holds living in neighborhoods that are relatively dense,…